Department of Health and Social Care

Coronavirus: Vaccination

Miriam Cates: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 June 2022 to Question 17162 on Coronavirus: Vaccination for children, for what reason the covid-19 vaccination for five- to 11-year-olds was included in the NHS.UK vaccination schedule information for the purposes of raising awareness with the public; who made that policy decision; what the set criteria are for including vaccines on the NHS routine children's immunisations schedule; and whether the threshold for long-term benefit in otherwise healthy children has been met for the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine.

Maggie Throup: While the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s one-off advice for a non-urgent offer of the Pfizer vaccine in this age group was publicised on NHS.UK to raise awareness, it does not reflect a change in policy. COVID-19 vaccination is not included in the UK Health Security Agency’s routine childhood immunisation schedule, which provides immunisation information for health professionals and immunisation practitioners.

Mental Health Services: Finance

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan, how much and what proportion of the £2.3 billion funding for mental health has been distributed; and what that funding has been spent on.

Gillian Keegan: The NHS Long Term Plan allocated a minimum £2.3 billion a year for the expansion of mental health services in England by 2023/24. However, this information is not held in the format requested. The ‘’NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan 2019/20 – 2023/24’ provides a summary of this investment which is available at the following link: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/nhs-mental-health-implementation-plan-2019-20-2023-24.pdf The NHS Mental Health Dashboard provides annual spending plans for National Health Service commissioning organisations, which is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/